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•<i. 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 



By IRVIN S. COBB 



FICTION 

THOSE TIMES AND THESE 

LOCAL COLOR 

OLD JUDGE PRIEST 

FIBBLE, D.D. 

BACK HOME 

THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIM:^ 

THE THUNDERS OF SILENCE 

WIT AND HUMOR 

EATING IN TWO OR THREE LANGUAGES 

"SPEAKING OF OPERATIONS " 

EUROPE REVISED 
ROUGHING IT DE LUXE 
COBB'S BILL OF FARE 
COBB'S ANATOMY 

MISCELLANY 

THE GLORY OF THE COMING 

PATHS OF GLORY 

"SPEAKING OF PRUSSIANS " 



GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
NEW YORK 




NO RED MEATS, BUT ONLY SEA FOODS 



Eating 

in Two or Three 

Languages 

By '^ 

Irvin Si Cobb 

Author of 
^^Paths of Glory,'' ''Those Times and These,'' etc. 



New York 
George H. Dor an Company 






Copyright, 1919, 
By George H. Doran Company 



COPYRIGHT, 191 8, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



1^^^ 



n^^ 
^ ^ 



"^U 



CI.A5 12170 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 



TO 

B. B. McALPIN, ESQUIRE, 

WHO KNOWS A LOT 
ABOUT EATING 



[v] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



No Red Meats, but Only Sea Foods . Frontispiece •^ 

PAGE 

"Herb, Stand Back! Stand Well Back to 
Avoid Being Splashed!" 20 ^^ 

Half a Dozen Times a Night or Oftener 
He Travelled under Escort through the 
Room 48 



[vil] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 



ON my way home from overseas I spent 
many happy hours mapping out a 
campaign. To myself I said : ^^The 
day I land is going to be a great day for 
some of the waiters and a hard day on some 
of the cooks. Persons who happen to be 
near by when I am wrestling with my first 
ear of green corn will think I am playing 
on a mouth organ. My behaviour in re- 
gard to hothouse asparagus will be remi- 
niscent of the best work of the late Bosco. 
In the matter of cantaloupes I rather fancy 
I shall consume the first two on the half 
shell, or au naturel, as we veteran corre- 
spondents say; but the third one will con- 
tain about as much vanilla ice cream as you 
could put in a derby hat. 

"And when, as I am turning over my sec- 
ond piece of fried chicken, with Virginia 
ham, if H. Hoover should crawl out from 
under it, and, shaking the gravy out of his 
eyes, should lift a warning hand, I shall say 
to him: ^Herb,' I shall say, ^Herb, stand 

[13] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

back! Stand well back to avoid being 
splashed, Herb. Please desist and do not 
bother me now, for I am busy. Kindly re- 
member that I am but just returned from 
over there and that for months and months 
past, as I went to and fro across the face of 
the next hemisphere that you'll run into on 
the left of you if you go just outside of 
Sandy Hook and take the first turn to the 
right, I have been storing up a great, un- 
satisfied longing for the special dishes of my 
own, my native land. Don't try, I pray you, 
to tell me a patriot can't do his bit and eat 
it too, for I know better. 

^* ^Shortly I may be in a fitter frame of 
mind to listen to your admonitions touching 
on rationing schemes; but not to-day, and 
possibly not to-morrow either. Herb. At 
this moment I consider food regulations as 
having been made for slaves and perhaps 
for the run of other people; but not for me. 
As a matter of fact, what you may have ob- 
served up until now has merely been my 
preliminary attack — ^what you might call 
open warfare, with scouting operations. 

[14] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

But when they bring on the transverse sec- 
tion of watermelon I shall take these two 
trenching tools which I now hold in my 
hands, and just naturally start digging in. 
I trust you may be hanging round then; 
you'll certainly overhear something.' ' 

^^ ^Kindly pass the ice water. That's it. 
Thank you. Join me, won't you, in a brim- 
ming beaker? It may interest you to know 
that I am now on my second carafe of this 
wholesome, delicious and satisfying bever- 
age. Where I have lately been, in certain 
parts of the adjacent continent, there isn't 
any ice, and nobody by any chance ever 
drinks water. Nobody bathes in it either, 
so far as I have been able to note. You'll 
doubtless be interested in hearing what they 
do do with it over on that side. It took me 
months to find out. 

" ^Then finally, one night in a remote in- 
terior village, I went to an entertainment 
in a Y. M. C. A. hut. A local magician 
came out on the platform; and after he had 
done some tricks with cards and handker- 
chiefs which were so old that they were 

[15] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

new all over again, he reached up under the 
tails of his dress coat and hauled out a big 
glass globe that was slopping full of its 
crystal-pure fluid contents, with a family of 
goldfish swimming round and round in it, 
as happy as you please. 

" ^So then, all in a flash, the answer came 
and I knew the secret of what the provin- 
cials in that section of Europe do with wa- 
ter. They loan it to magicians to keep gold- 
fish in. But I prefer to drink a little of it 
while I am eating and to eat a good deal 
while I am drinking it; both of which, I 
may state, I am now doing to the best of my 
ability, and without let or hindrance, 
Herb.' " 

To be exactly correct about it, I be- 
gan mapping out this campaign long be- 
fore I took ship for the homeward hike. 
The suggestion formed in my mind during 
those weeks I spent in London, when the 
resident population first went on the food- 
card system. You had to have a meat card, 
I think, to buy raw meat in a butcher shop, 
and you had to have another kind of meat 

[16] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

card, I know, to get cooked meat in a res- 
taurant; and you had to have a friend who 
was a smuggler or a hoarder to get an 
adequate supply of sugar under any cir- 
cumstances. Before I left, every one was 
carrying round a sheaf of cards. You didn't 
dare go fishing if you had mislaid your 
worm card. 

The resolution having formed, it bud- 
ded and grew in my mind when I was 
up near the Front gallantly exposing my- 
self to the sort of table-d'hote dinners 
that were available then in some of the 
lesser towns immediately behind the fir- 
ing lines; and it kept right on growing, 
so that by the time I was ready to sail it 
was full sized. En route, I thought up an 
interchangeable answer for two of the old- 
est conundrums of my childhood, one of 
them being: ^^Round as a biscuit, busy as a 
bee; busiest thing you ever did see," and 
the other, ^^Opens like a barn door, shuts 
like a trap; guess all day and you can't 
guess that." In the original versions the 
answer to the first was "A watch," and to 

[17] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

the second, "A corset" — if I recall aright. 
But the joint answer I worked out was as 
follows: ''My face!" 

Such was the pleasing program I fig- 
ured out on shipboard. But, as is so fre- 
quently the case with the most pleasing 
things in life, I found the anticipation rather 
outshone the realisation. Already I detect 
myself, in a retrospective mood, hankering 
for the savoury ragouts we used to get in 
peasant homes in obscure French villages, 
and for the meals they gave us at the regi- 
mental messes of our own forces, where the 
cooking was the home sort and good honest 
American slang abounded. 

They called the corned beef Canned Wil- 
lie ; and the stew was known affectionately as 
Slum, and the doughnuts were Fried Holes. 
When the adjutant, who had been taking 
French lessons, remarked ''What the la hell 
does that sacre-blew cook mean by serving 
forty-fours at every meal?" you gathered he 
was getting a mite tired of baked army 
beans. And if the lieutenant colonel asked 
you to pass him the Native Sons you knew 

[18] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

he meant he wanted prunes. It was a great 
life, if you didn't weaken — and nobody did. 

But, so far as the joys of the table are 
concerned, I think I shall be able to wait 
for quite a spell before I yearn for an- 
other whack at English eating. I opine 
Charles Dickens would be a most unhappy 
man could he but return to the scenes he 
loved and wrote about. 

Dickens, as will be recalled, specialised 
in mouth-watering descriptions of good 
things and typically British things to eat — 
roast sucking pigs, with apples in their 
snouts; and baked goose; and suety plum 
puddings like speckled cannon balls; and 
cold game pies as big round as barrel tops — 
and all such. He wouldn't find these things 
prevailing to any noticeable extent in his 
native island now. Even the kidney, the 
same being the thing for which an English- 
man mainly raises a sheep and which he 
always did know how to serve up better than 
any one else on earth, somehow doesn't 
seem to be the kidney it once upon a time 

[19] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

was when it had the proper sorts of trim- 
mings and sauces to go with it. 

At this time England is no place for the 
epicure. In peacetime English cooks, as 
a rule, were not what you would call versa- 
tile; their range, as it were, was limited. 
Once, seeking to be blithesome and light 
of heart, I wrote an article in which I said 
there were only three dependable vegetables 
on the average Englishman's everyday 
menu — boiled potatoes, boiled cabbage, and 
a second helping of the boiled potatoes. 

That was an error on my part; I was un- 
intentionally guilty of the crime of under- 
estimation. I should have added a fourth 
to the list of stand-bys — to wit: the vege- 
table marrow. For some reason, possibly 
because they are a stubborn and tenacious 
race, the English persist in looking upon 
the vegetable marrow as an object designed 
for human consumption, which is altogether 
the wrong view to take of it. As a food- 
stuff this article hasn't even the merit that 
attaches to stringy celery. You do not de- 
rive much nourishment from stale celery, 

[20] 







'HERB, STAND BACK! STAND WP^LL BACK TO AVOID 
BEING splashed!" 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

but eating at it polishes the teeth and pro- 
vides a healthful form of exercise that gives 
you an appetite for the rest of the meal. 

From the vegetable marrow you derive 
no nourishment, and certainly you derive 
no exercise; for, being a soft, weak, spirit- 
less thing, it offers no resistance whatever, 
and it looks a good deal like a streak of 
solidified fog and tastes like the place where 
an indisposed carrot spent the night. Next 
to our summer squash it is the feeblest imita- 
tion that ever masqueraded in a skin and 
called itself a vegetable. Yet its friends 
over there seem to set much store by it. 

Likewise the English cook has always 
gone in rather extensively for boiling 
things. When in doubt she boiled. But it 
takes a lot of retouching to restore to a 
piece of boiled meat the juicy essences that 
have been simmered and drenched out of 
it. Since the English people, with such 
admirable English thoroughness, cut down 
on fats and oils and bacon garnishments, so 
that the greases might be conserved for the 
fighting forces; and since they have so 

[21] 



I 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

largely had to do without imported spices 
and condiments, because the cargo spaces 
in the ships coming in were needed for mili- 
tary essentials, the boiled dishes of Eng- 
land appear to have lost most of their taste. 

You can do a lot of browsing about at 
an English table these days and come away 
ostensibly filled; but inside you there will 
be a persistent unsatisfied feeling, all the 
same, which is partly due, no doubt, to 
the lack of sweetening and partly due to 
the lack of fats, but due most of all, I think, 
to a natural disappointment in the results. 
In the old times a man didn't feel that he 
had dined well in England unless for an 
hour or two afterward he had the comfort- 
able gorged sensation of a python full of 
pigeons. 

I shall never forget the first meals I had 
on English soil, this latest trip. At the port 
where we landed, in the early afternoon of 
a raw day, you could get tea if you cared 
for tea, which I do not; but there was no 
sugar — only saccharine — to sweeten it with, 
and no rich cream, or even skim milk, 

[22] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

available with which to dilute it. The 
accompanying buns had a flat, dry, floury 
taste, and the portions of butter served with 
them were very homoeopathic indeed as to 
size and very oleomargarinish as to flavour. 

Going up to London we rode in a train 
that was crowded and darkened. Bril- 
liantly illuminated trains scooting across 
country offered an excellent mark for the 
aim of hostile air raiders, you know; so in 
each compartment the gloom was enhanced 
rather than dissipated by two tiny pin points 
of a ghastly pale-blue gas flame. I do not 
know why there should have been two of 
these lights, unless it was that the second 
one was added so that by its wan flickerings 
you could see the first one, and vice versa. 

During the trip, which lasted several 
hours longer than the scheduled running 
time, we had for refreshments a few gnarly 
apples, purchased at a way station; and 
that was all. Recalling the meals that for- 
merly had been served aboard the boat 
trains of this road, I realised I was getting 
my preliminary dose of life on an island 

[23] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

whose surrounding waters were pestered by 
U-boats and whose shipping was needed for 
transport service. But I pinned my gas- 
tronomic hopes on London, that city famed 
of old for the plenteous prodigality of its 
victualling facilities. In my ignorance I 
figured that the rigours of rationing could 
not affect London to any very noticeable 
extent. A little trimming down here and 
there, an enforced curtailment in this direc- 
tion and that — ^yes, perhaps so; but surely 
nothing more serious. 

Immediately on arrival we chartered a 
taxicab — a companion and I did. This was 
not so easy a job as might be imagined by 
one who formed his opinions on past recol- 
lections of London, because, since gasoline 
was carefully rationed there, taxis were 
scarce where once they had been numerous. 
Indeed, I know of no city in which, in ante- 
bellum days, taxis were so numerously dis- 
tributed through almost every quarter of the 
town as in London. At any busy corner 
there were almost as many taxicabs waiting 
and ready to serve you as there are taxicabs 

[24] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

in New York whose drivers are cruising 
about looking for a chance to run over you. 
The foregoing is still true of New York, 
but did not apply to London in war time. 

Having chartered our cab, much to the 
chagrin of a group of our fellow travellers 
who had wasted precious time getting their 
heavy luggage out of the van, we rode 
through the darkened streets to a hotel for- 
merly renowned for the scope and excel- 
lence of its cuisine. We reached there after 
the expiration of the hour set apart under 
the food regulations for serving dinner to 
the run of folks. But, because we were both 
in uniform — he as a surgeon in the British 
Army, and I as a correspondent — and be- 
cause we had but newly finished a journey 
by rail, we were entitled, it seemed, to claim 
refreshment. 

However, he, as an officer, was restricted 
to a meal costing not to exceed six shillings 
— and six shillings never did go far in this 
hotel, even when prices were normal. Not 
being an officer but merely a civilian dis- 
guised in the habiliments of a military man, 

[25] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

I, on the other hand, was bound by no such 
limitations, but might go as far as I pleased. 
So it was decided that I should order 
double portions of everything and sur- 
reptitiously share with him; for by now 
we were hungry to the famishing point. 

We had our minds set on a steak — a large 
thick steak served with onions, Desdemona 
style — that is to say, smothered. It was 
a pretty thought, a passing fair conception 
— but a vain one. 

^^No steaks to-night, sir," said the waiter 
sorrowfully. 

^^AU right, then," one of us said. "How 
about chops — fat juicy chops?" 

"Oh, no, sir; no chops, sir," he told us. 

"Well then, what have you in the line of 
red meats?" 

He was desolated to be compelled to in- 
form us that there were no red meats of 
any sort to be had, but only sea foods. So 
we started in with oysters. Personally I 
have never cared deeply for the European 
oyster. In size he is anaemic and puny as 
compared with his brethren of the eastern 

[26] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

coast of North America; and, moreover, 
chronically he i§ suffering from an acute 
attack of brass poisoning. The only way 
by which a novice may distinguish a bad 
European oyster from a good European 
oyster is by the fact that a bad one tastes 
slightly better than a good one does. In 
my own experience I have found this to be 
the one infallible test. 

We had oysters until both of us were full 
of verdigris, and I, for one, had a tang in 
my mouth like an antique bronze jug; and 
then we proceeded to fish. We had fillets 
of sole, which tasted as they looked — flat 
and a bit flabby. Subsequently I learned 
that this lack of savour in what should be 
the most toothsome of all European fishes 
might be attributed to an insufficiency of 
fat in the cooking; but at the moment I 
could only believe the trip up from Dover 
had given the poor thing a touch of car 
sickness from which he had not recovered 
before he reached us. 

After that we had lobsters, half-fare 
size, but charged for at the full adult rates. 

[27] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

And, having by now exhausted our capac- 
ity for sea foods, we wound up with an al- 
leged dessert in the shape of three drowned 
prunes apiece, the remains being partly im- 
mersed in a palish custardlike composition 
that was slightly sour. 

"Never mind," I said to my indignant 
stomach as we left the table — "Never 
mind! I shall make it all up to you for 
this mistreatment at breakfast to-morrow 
morning. We shall rise early — you and I — 
and with loud gurgling cries we shall leap 
headlong into one of those regular break- 
fasts in which the people of this city and 
nation specialise so delightfully. Food 
regulators may work their ruthless will 
upon the dinner trimmings, but none would 
dare to put so much as the weight of one 
impious finger upon an Englishman's 
breakfast table to curtail its plenitude. 
Why, next to Magna Charta, an English- 
man's breakfast is his most sacred right." 

This in confidence was what I whispered 
to my gastric juices. You see, being still 
in ignorance of the full scope of the ration 

[28] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

scheme in its application to the metropoli- 
tan district, and my disheartening experi- 
ence at the meal just concluded to the con- 
trary notwithstanding, I had my thoughts 
set upon rashers of crisp Wiltshire 
bacon, and broad segments of grilled York 
Iham, and fried soles, and lovely plump 
sausages bursting from their jackets, and 
devilled kidneys paired off on a slice of 
toast, like Noah and his wife crossing the 
gangplank into the Ark. 

Need I prolong the pain of my dis- 
closures by longer withholding the distress- 
ing truth that breakfast next morning was 
a failure too? To begin with, I couldn't 
get any of those lovely crisp crescent rolls 
that accord so rhythmically with orange 
marmalade and strawberry jam. I couldn't 
get hot buttered toast either, but only some 
thin hard slabs of war bread, which seem- 
ingly had been dry-cured in a kiln. I could 
have but a very limited amount of sugar — 
a mere pinch, in fact; and if I used it to 
tone up my coffee there would be none left 
for oatmeal porridge. Moreover, this dab 

[29] 






Eating in Two or Three Languages 



of sugar was to be my full day's allowance, 
it seemed. There was no cream for the por- 
ridge either, but, instead, a small measure 
of skimmed milk so pale in colour that it 
had the appearance of having been diluted ! 
with moonbeams. 

Furthermore, I was informed that prior 
to nine-thirty I could have no meat of any 
sort, the only exceptions to this cruel rule 
being kippered herrings and bloaters; and 
in strict confidence the waiter warned me 
that, for some mysterious reason, neither the 
kippers nor the bloaters seemed to be up to 
their oldtime mark of excellence just now. 
From the same source I gathered that it 
would be highly inadvisable to order fried 
eggs, because of the lack of sufficient fat in 
which to cook them. So, as a last resort, I 
ordered two eggs, soft-boiled. They were 
served upended, English-fashion, in little in- 
dividual cups, the theory being that in turn 
I should neatly scalp the top off of each egg 
with my spoon and then scoop out the con- 
tents from Nature's own container. 

Now Englishmen are born with the fac- 

[30] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

ulty to perform this difficult achievement; 
they inherit it. But I have known only one 
American who could perform the feat with 
neatness and despatch; and, as he had de- 
voted practically all his energies to master- 
ing this difficult alien art, he couldn't do 
much of anything else, and, except when 
eggs were being served in the original pack- 
ages, he was practically a total loss in so- 
ciety. He was a variation of the breed who 
devote their lives to producing a perfect 
salad dressing; and you must know what 
sad affairs those persons are when not en- 
gaged in following their lone talent. Take 
them off of salad dressings and they are 
just naturally null and void. 

In my crude and amateurish way I at- 
tacked those eggs, breaking into them, not 
with the finesse the finished egg burglar 
would display, but more like a yeggman 
attacking a safe. I spilt a good deal of the 
insides of those eggs down over their out- 
sides, producing a most untidy effect; and 
when I did succeed in excavating a spoon- 
ful I generally forgot to season it, or else it 

[31] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

was full of bits of shell. Altogether, the 
results were unsatisfactory and mussy. 
Rarely have I eaten a breakfast which put 
so slight a subsequent strain upon my di- 
gestive processes. 

Until noon I hung about, preoccupied 
and surcharged with inner yearnings. 
There were plenty of things — important 
things, too, they were — that I should have 
been doing; but I couldn't seem to fix my 
mind upon any subject except food. The 
stroke of midday found me briskly walking 
into a certain restaurant on the Strand that 
for many decades has been internationally 
famous for the quality and the unlimited 
quantity of its foods, and more particularly 
for its beef and its mutton. If ever you 
visited London in peacetime you must re- 
member the place I mean. 

The carvers were middle-aged full- 
ported men, with fine ruddy complexions, 
and moustaches of the Japanese weeping 
mulberry or mammoth droop variety. On 
signal one of them would come promptly to 
you where you sat, he shoving ahead of him 

[32] 



p 

Eating in Two or Three Languages 

a great trencher on wheels, with a spirit 
lamp blazing beneath the platter to keep its 
delectable burden properly hot. It might 
be that he brought to you a noble haunch of 
venison or a splendid roast of pork or a vast 
leg of boiled mutton ; or, more likely yet, a 
huge joint of beef uprearing like a delect- 
able island from a sea of bubbling gravy, 
with an edging of mashed potatoes creaming 
up upon its outer reefs. 

If, then, you enriched this person with 
a shilling, or even if you didn't, he would 
take in his brawny right hand a knife with 
a blade a foot long, and with this knife he 
would cut off from the joint a slice about 
the size and general dimensions of a horse- 
shoer's apron. And if you cared for a sec- 
ond slice, after finishing the first one, the 
carver felt complimented and there was no 
extra charge for it. It was his delight to 
minister to you. 

But, alas, on this day when I came with 
my appetite whetted by my sea voyage, 
and with an additional edge put upon it 
by the privations I had undergone since 

[33] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

landing, there was to be had no beef at all! 
Of a sudden this establishment, lacking its 
roast beef, became to me as the tragedy of 
Hamlet, the melancholy Dane, would be 
with Hamlet and Ophelia and her pa and 
the ghost and the wicked queen, and both 
the gravediggers, all left out. 

When I had seated myself one of the 
carvers came to me and, with an abased 
and apologetic air, very different from his 
jaunty manner of yore, explained in a husky 
half whisper that I might have jugged hare 
or I might have boiled codfish, or I might 
have one of the awful dishes. Anyhow, 
that was what I understood him to say. 

This last had an especially daunting 
sound, but I suppose I was in a morbid 
state, anyhow, by now; and so I made fur- 
ther inquiry and ascertained from him that 
the restrictions applying to the sale of meat 
did not apply to the more intimate organs 
of the butchered animal, such as the liver 
and the heart, and, in the case of a cow, 
the tripe. But the English, with character- 
istic bluntness, choose to call one of these 

[34] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

in its cooked state an offal dish — pro- 
nounced as spelled and frequently tasting 
as pronounced. 

As one who had primed himself for a 
pound or so of the rib-roast section of a 
grass-fed steer, I was not to be put off with 
one of the critter's spare parts, as it were. 
Nor did the thought of codfish, and espe- 
cially boiled codfish, appeal to me greatly. 
I have no settled antipathy to the desic- 
cated tissues of this worthy deep-sea voyager 
when made up into fish cakes. Moreover 
that young and adolescent creature, com- 
monly called a Boston scrod, which is a 
codfish whose voice is just changing, is not 
without its attractions; but the full-grown 
species is not a favourite of mine. 

To me there has ever been something de- 
pressing about an adult codfish. Any one 
who has ever had occasion to take cod-liver 
oil — as who, unhappily, has not? — is bound 
to appreciate the true feelings that must 
inevitably come to a codfish as he goes to 

and fro in the deep for years on a stretch,. 

[35] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

carrying that kind of a liver about with 
him all the while. 

As a last resort I took the jugged hare; 
but jugged hare was not what I craved. At 
eventide, returning to the same restaurant, 
I was luckier. I found mutton on the 
menu; but, even so, yet another hard blow 
awaited me. By reason of the meat-ration- 
ing arrangements a single purchaser was re- 
stricted to so many ounces a week, and no 
more. The portion I received in exchange 
for a corner clipped off my meat card was 
but a mere reminder of what a portion in 
that house would have been in the old days. 

There had been a time when a sincere 
but careless diner from up Scotland way, 
down in London on a visit, would have car- 
ried away more than that much on his 
necktie ; which did not matter particularly 
then, when food was plentiful; and, be- 
sides, usually he wore a pattern of necktie 
which was improved by almost anything 
that was spilled upon it. But it did matter 
to me that I had to dine on this hangnail 
pared from a sheep. 

[36] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

A few days later I partook of a fast at 
what was supposed to be a luncheon, which 
the Lord Mayor of London attended, in 
company with sundry other notables. 
Earlier readings had led me to expect an 
endless array of spicy and succulent viands 
at any table a Lord Mayor might grace 
with his presence. Such, though, was not 
the case here. We had eggs for an entree; 
and after that we had plain boiled turbot, 
which to my mind is no great shakes of a 
fish, even when tuckered up with sauces ; and 
after that we had coffee and cigars; and 
finally we had several cracking good 
speeches by members of a race whose men 
are erroneously believed by some Ameri- 
cans to be practically inarticulate when they 
get up on their feet and try to talk. 

There was a touch of tragedy mingled in 
with the comedy of the situation in the 
spectacle of these Englishmen, belonging to 
a nation of proverbially generous feeders. 
Stinting themselves and cutting the lardings 
and the sweetenings and the garnishments 
down to the limit that there might be a 

[37] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

greater abundance of solid sustenance forth- 
coming for their fighting forces. 

I do not mean by this that there was any 
real lack of nourishing provender in Lon- 
don or anywhere else in England that I 
went. The long queues of waiting patrons 
in front of the butcher shops during the 
first few days of my sojourn very soon dis- 
appeared when people learned that they 
could be sure of getting meat of one sort or 
another, and at a price fixed by law; which 
was a good thing too, seeing that thereby 
the extortioner and the profiteer lost their 
chances to gain unduly through the neces- 
sities of the populace. So far as I was able 
to ascertain, nobody on the island actually 
suffered — except the present writer of these 
lines; and he suffered chiefly because he 
could not restrain himself from comparing 
the English foods of pre-war periods with 
the English foods of the hour. 

If things were thus in England, what 
would they be in France? This was the 
question I repeatedly put to myself. But 
when I got to France a surprise awaited me. 

[38] . 



Eating in Two or Three Languag^es 

It was a surprise deferred, because for the 
first week of my sojourn upon French soil I 
was the guest of the British military author- 
ities at a chateau maintained for the en- 
tertainment of visiting Americans who bore 
special credentials from the British Foreign 
Office. 

Here, because Britain took such good 
and splendid care to provide amply for her 
men in uniform, there was a wide variety 
of good food and an abundance of it for the 
guests and hosts alike. I figured, though, 
that when I had passed beyond the zone of 
this gracious hospitality there would be slim 
pickings. Not at all! 

In Paris there was to be had all the food 
and nearly all the sorts of food any appe- 
tite, however fastidious, might crave. This 
was before the French borrowed the card 
system of ration control in order to govern 
the consumption of certain of the necessi- 
ties. Of poultry and of sea foods the only 
limits to what one might order were his in- 
terior capacity and his purse. Of red meats 
there was seemingly a boundless supply. 

[39] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

One reason for this plenitude lay in the 
fact that France, to a very great extent, is 
a self-contained, self-supporting land, 
which England distinctly is not; and an- 
other reason undoubtedly was that the 
French, being more frugal and careful 
than their British or their American breth- 
ren ever have been, make culinary use of a 
great deal of healthful provender which the 
English-speaking races throw away. Mere- 
ly by glancing at the hors d'oeuvres served 
at luncheon in a medium-priced cafe in 
Paris one can get a good general idea of 
what discriminating persons declined to eat 
at dinner the night before. 

The Parisian garbage collector must 
work by the day and not by the job. On a 
piecework contract he would starve to 
death. And a third reason was that all 
through the country the peasants, by re- 
quest of the Government, were slaughter- 
ing their surplus beeves and sheep and 
swine, so there might be more forage for 
the army horses and more grain available 
for the flour rations of the soldiers. 

[40] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

In Paris the bread was indifferently poor. 
An individual was restricted to one me- 
dium-sized roll of bread at a meal. But- 
ter was not by any means abundant, and of 
sugar there was none to be had at all un- 
less the traveller had bethought him to slip 
a supply into the country with him. The 
bulk of the milk supply was requisitioned 
for babies and invalids and disabled sol- 
diers. Cakes or pastries in any form were 
absolutely prohibited in the public eating 
places, and, I think, in private homes as 
well. But of beef and mutton and veal and 
fowls, and the various products of the hum- 
ble but widely versatile pig, there was no 
end, provided you had the inclination plus 
the price. 

And so, though the lack of sugar in one's 
food gave one an almost constant craving 
for something sweet — and incidentally in- 
sured a host of friends for anybody who 
came along with a box of American candy 
under his arm or a few cakes of sweet choco- 
late in his pocket — one might take his 
choice of a wide diversity of fare at any 

[41] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

restaurant of the first or second class, and 
keep well stayed. 

In connection with the Paris restaurants 
I made a most interesting discovery, which 
was that when France called up her avail- 
able man power at the time of the great 
mobilisation, the military heads somehow 
overlooked one group who, for their sins, 
should have been sent up where bullets 
and Huns were thickest. The slum gave 
up its Apache — and a magnificent fighter he 
is said to have made too! And the pirati- 
cal cab drivers who formerly infested the 
boulevards must have answered the sum- 
mons almost to a man, because only a few 
of them are left nowadays, and they mainly 
wear markings to prove they have served 
in the ranks; but by a most reprehensible 
error of somebody in authority the typical 
head waiters of the cafes were spared. I 
base this assertion upon the fact that all of 
them appeared to be on duty at the time of 
my latest visit. If there was a single ab- 
sentee from the ranks I failed to miss him. 

There they were, the same hawk-eyed 

[42] 



p 

Rating in Two or Three Languages 

banditti crew that one was constantly en- 
countering in the old days; and up to all 
the same old tricks too — such as adding the 
date of the month and all the figures of the 
year into the bill; and such as invariably 
recommending the most expensive dishes 
to foreigners; and such as coming to one 
and bending over one and smiling upon one 
and murmuring to one: ^^An' wot will ze 
gentailman 'ave to-day?" — and then, be- 
fore the gentailman can answer, jumping 
right in and telling him what he is going to 
have, always favouring at least three differ- 
ent kinds of meats for even the lightest 
meal, and never less than two vegetables, 
and never once failing to recommend a full 
bottle of the costliest wine on the premises. 

Stress of war had not caused these gentry 
to forget or forgo a single one of the ancient 
wiles that for half a century their kind has 
practised upon American tourists and 
others who didn't care what else they did 
with their money so long as they were given 
a chance to spend it for something they 
didn't particularly want. Yep; those 

[43] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

charged with the responsibility of calling 
up the reserves certainly made a big mis- 
take back yonder in August of 19 14. They 
practised discrimination in the wrong quar- 
ter altogether. If any favouritism was to 
be shown they should have taken the head 
waiters and left the Apaches at home. 

Many's the hard battle that I had with 
these chaps in 191 8. It never failed — not 
one single, solitary time did it fail — that 
the functionary who took my order first 
tried to tell me what my order was going to 
be, and then, after a struggle, reluctantly 
consented to bring me the things I wanted 
and insisted on having. Never once did he 
omit the ceremony of impressing it upon 
me that he would regard it as a deep fa- 
vour if only I would be so good as to order 
a whole lobster. I do not think there was 
anything personal in this ; he recommended 
the lobster because lobster was the most 
expensive thing he had in stock. If he could 
have thought of anything more expensive 
than lobster he would have recommended 
that. 

[44] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

I always refused — not that I harbour any 
grudge against lobsters as a class, but be- 
cause I object to being dictated to by a 
buccaneer with flat feet, who wears a soiled 
dickey instead of a shirt, and who is only 
waiting for a chance to overcharge me or 
short-change me, or giw^ me bad money, or 
something. If every other form of prov- 
ender had failed them the populace of Paris 
could have subsisted very comfortably for 
several days on the lobsters I refused to buy 
in the course of the spring and summer of 
last year. I'm sure of it. 

And when I had firmly, emphatically, 
yea, ofttimes passionately declined the 
proffered lobster, he, having with difficulty 
mastered his chagrin, would seek to direct 
my attention to the salmon, his motive for 
this change in tactics being that salmon, 
though apparently plentiful, was generally 
the second most expensive item upon the 
regular menu. Salmon as served in Paris 
wears a dififerent aspect from the one com- 
monly worn by it when it appears upon the 
table here. 

[45] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

Over there they cut the fish through 
amidships, in cross-sections, and, removing 
the segment of spinal column, spread the 
portion flat upon a plate and serve it thus ; 
the result greatly resembling a pair of mini- 
ature pink horse collars. A man who knew 
not the salmon in his native state, or order- 
ing salmon in France, would get the idea 
that the salmon was bowlegged and that 
the breast had been sold to some one else, 
leaving only the hind quarters for him. 

Harking back to lobsters, I am reminded 
of a tragedy to which I was an eyewitness. 
Nearly every night for a week or more two 
of us dined at the same restaurant on the 
Rue de Rivoli. On the occasion of our first 
appearance here we were confronted as we 
entered by a large table bearing all manner 
of special delicacies and cold dishes. Right 
in the middle of the array was one of the 
largest lobsters I ever saw, reposing on a 
couch of water cress and seaweed, arranged 
upon a serviette. He made an impressive 
sight as he lay there prone upon his stom- 
ach, fidgeting his feelers in a petulant way. 

[46] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

We two took seats near by. At once the 
silent signal was given signifying, in the 
cipher code, ^^Americans in the house!" 
And the mattre d'hotel came to where he 
rested and, grasping him firmly just back 
of the armpits, picked him up and brought 
him over to us and invited us to consider 
his merits. When we had singly and to- 
gether declined to consider the proposition 
of eating him in each of the three languages 
we knew — namely, English, bad French, 
and profane — the master sorrowfully re- 
turned him to his bed. 

Presently two other Americans entered 
and immediately after them a party of Eng- 
lish officers, and then some more Ameri- 
cans. Each time the boss would gather up 
the lobster and personally introduce him to 
the newcomers, just as he had done in our 
case, by poking the monster under their 
noses and making him wriggle to show that 
he was really alive and not operated by 
clockwork, and enthusiastically dilating 
upon his superior attractions, which, he 
assured them, would be enormously en- 

[47] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

hanced if only messieurs would agree forth- 
with to partake of him in a broiled state. 
But there were no takers ; and so back again 
he would go to his place by the door, there 
to remain till the next prospective victim 
arrived. 

We fell into the habit of going to this 
place in the evenings in order to enjoy repe- 
titions of this performance while dining. 
The lobster became to us as an old friend, 
a familiar acquaintance. We took to calling 
him Jess Willard, partly on account of his 
reach and partly on account of his rugged 
appearance, but most of all because his man- 
ager appeared to have so much trouble in 
getting him matched with anybody. 

Half a dozen times a night, or oftener, he 
travelled under escort through the dining 
room, always returning again to his regular 
station. Along about the middle of the 
week he began to fail visibly. Before our 
eyes we saw him fading. Either the arti- 
ficial life he was leading or the strain of 
being turned down so often was telling upon 
him. It preyed upon his mind, as we could 

£48] 




lLF a dozen times a night or OFTENER tie TRW KLLKI) 
^DEU ESCORT THROUGH THE DININC; ROOM 



^Eating in Two or Three Languages 

discern by his morose expression. It sapped 
his splendid vitality as well. No longer 
did he expand his chest and wave his nu- 
merous extremities about when being ex- 
hibited before the indifferent eyes of possi- 
ble investors, but remained inert, logy, 
gloomy, spiritless — a melancholy spectacle 
indeed. 

It now required artificial stimulation to 
induce him to display even a temporary 
interest in his surroundings. With a prac- 
tised finger, his keeper would thump him 
on the tenderer portions of his stomach, and 
then he would wake up ; but it was only for 
a moment. He relapsed again into his lam- 
entable state of depression and languor. 
By every outward sign here was a lobster 
that fain would withdraw from the world. 
But we knew that for him there was no op- 
portunity to do so; on the hoof he repre- 
sented too many precious francs to be al- 
lowed to go into retirement. 

Coming on Saturday night we realised 
that for our old friend the end was nigh. 
His eyes were deeply set about two-thirds 

[49] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

of the way back toward his head and with 
one listless claw he picked at the serviette. 
The summons was very near; the dread in- 
evitable impended. 

Sunday night he was still present, but in 
a greatly altered state. During the preced- 
ing twenty-four hours his brave spirit had 
fled. They had boiled him then; so now, 
instead of being green, he was a bright and 
varnished red all over, the exact colour of 
Truck Six in the Paducah Fire Depart- 
ment. 

We felt that we who had been sympa- 
thisers at the bedside during some of his 
farewell moments owed it to his memory to 
assist in the last sad rites. At a perfectly 
fabulous price we bought the departed and 
undertook to give him what might be called 
a personal interment; but he was a disap- 
pointment. He should have been allowed 
to take the veil before misanthropy had en- 
tirely undermined his health and destroyed 
his better nature, and made him, as it were, 

morbid. Like Harry Leon Wilson's im- 

[50] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

mortal Cousin Egbert, he could be pushed 
just so far, and no farther. 

Before I left Paris the city was put upon 
bread cards. The country at large was sup- 
posed to be on bread rations too; but in 
most of the smaller towns I visited the 
hotel keepers either did not know about the 
new regulation or chose to disregard it 
Certainly they generally disregarded it so 
far as we were concerned. For all I know 
to the contrary, though, they were restrict- 
ing their ordinary patrons to the ordained 
quantities and making an exception in the 
case of our people. It may have been one of 
their ways of showing a special courtesy to 
representatives of an allied race. It would 
have been characteristic of these kindly 
provincial innkeepers to have done just that 
thing. 

Likewise, one could no longer obtain 
cheese in a first-grade Paris restaurant or 
aboard a French dining car, though cheese 
was to be had in unstinted quantity in the 
rural districts and in the Paris shops; and, 
I believe, it was also procurable in the cafes 

[51] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

of the Parisian working classes, provided it 
formed a part of a meal costing not more 
than five francs, or some such sum. In a 
first-rate place it was, of course, impossible 
to get any sort of meal for five francs, or 
ten francs either; especially after the ten 
per cent luxury tax had been tacked on. 

In March prices at the smarter cafe eat- 
ing places had already advanced, I should 
say, at least one hundred per cent above the 
customary pre-war rates; and by midsum- 
mer the tariffs showed a second hundred per 
cent increase in delicacies, and one of at 
least fifty per cent in staples, which brought 
them almost up to the New York standards. 
Outside of Paris prices continued to be 
moderate and fair. 

Just as I was about starting on my last 
trip to the Front before sailing for home, 
official announcement was made that dog 
biscuits would shortly be advanced in price 
to a well-nigh prohibitive figure. So I pre- 
sume that very shortly thereafter the head 
waiters began offering dog biscuits to 

American guests. I knew they would do so, 

[52] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

just as soon as a dog biscuit cost more than 
a lobster did. 

Until this trip I never appreciated what 
a race of perfect cooks the French are. I 
thought I did, but I didn't. One visiting 
the big cities or stopping at show places 
and resorts along the main lines of motor 
and rail travel in peacetime could never 
come to a real and due appreciation of the 
uniformly high culinary expertness of the 
populace in general. I had to take cam- 
paigning trips across country into isolated 
districts lying well off the old tourist lanes 
to learn the lesson. Having learned it, I 
profited by it. 

No matter how small the hamlet or how 

dingy appearing the so-called hotel in it 

might be, we were sure of getting satisfying 

food, cooked agreeably and served to us by 

a friendly, smiling little French maiden, 

and charged for at a most reasonable figure, 

considering that generally the town was 

fairly close up to the fighting lines and the 

bringing in of supplies for civilians' needs 

[53] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

was frequently subordinated to the handling 
of military necessities. 

Indeed, the place might be almost within 
range of the big guns and ^subjected to 
bombing outrages by enemy airmen, but 
somehow the local Boniface managed to 
produce food ample for our desires, and 
most appetising besides. His larder might 
be limited, but his good nature, like his 
willingness and his hospitality, was bound- 
less. 

I predict that there is going to be an era 
of better cooking in America before very 
long. Our soldiers, returning home, are go- 
ing to demand a tastier and more diversified 
fare than many of them enjoyed before they 
put on khaki and went overseas; and they 
are going to get it, too. Remembering what 
they had to eat under French roofs, they 
will never again be satisfied with meats 
fried to death, with soggy vegetables, with 
underdone breads. 

Sometimes as we went scouting about on 
our roving commission to see what we 
might see, at mealtime we would enter a 

[54] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

community too small to harbour within it 
any establishment calling itself a hotel. In 
such a case this, then, would be our pro- 
cedure: We would run down to the rail- 
road crossing and halt at the door of the in- 
evitable Cafe de la Station, or, as we should 
say in our language, the Last Chance Sa- 
loon; and of the proprietor we would in- 
quire the name and whereabouts of some 
person in the community who might be in- 
duced, for a price, to feed a duet or a trio 
of hungry correspondents. 

At first, when we were green at the thing, 
we sometimes tried to interrogate the local 
gendarme; but complications, misunder- 
standings, and that same confusion of 
tongues which spoiled so promising a build- 
ing project one time at the Tower of Babel 
always ensued. Central Europe has a very 
dense population, as the geographies used 
to tell us; but the densest ones get on the 
police force. 

So when by bitter experience we had 
learned that the gendarme never by any 
chance could get our meaning and that we 

[55] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

never could understand his gestures, we hit 
upon the wise expedient of going right 
away to the Last Chance for information. 

At the outset I preferred to let one of my 
companions conduct the inquiry; but pres- 
ently it dawned upon me that my mode of 
speech gave unbounded joy to my provin- 
cial audiences, and I decided that if a little 
exertion on my part brought a measure of 
innocent pleasure into the lives of these 
good folks it was my duty, as an Ally, to 
oblige whenever possible. 

I came to realise that all these years I 
have been employing the wrong vehicle 
when I strive to dash off whimsicalities, be- 
cause frequently my very best efforts, as 
done in English, have fallen flat. But when 
in some remote village I, using French, ut- 
tered the simplest and most commonplace 
remark to a French tavern keeper, with 
absolutely no intent or desire whatsoever, 
mind you, to be humorous or facetious, in- 
variably he would burst instantly into peals 
of unbridled merriment. 

Frequently he would call in his wife or 

[56] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

■ III I I < 

some of his friends to help him laugh. And 
then, when his guffaws had died away into 
gentle chuckles, he would make answer; 
and if he spoke rapidly, as he always did, 
I would be swept away by the freshets of 
his eloquence and left gasping far beyond 
my depth. 

That was why, when I went to a revue in 
Paris, I hoped they'd have some good tum- 
bling on the bill. 

I understand French, of course, curiously 
enough, but not as spoken. I likewise have 
difficulty in making out its meaning when I 
read it; but in other regards I flatter myself 
that my knowledge of the language is quite 
adequate. Certainly, as I have just stated, 
I managed to create a pleasant sensation 
among my French hearers when I em- 
ployed it in conversation. 

As I was saying, the general rule was 
that I should ask the name and whereabouts 
of a house in the town where we might pro- 
cure victuals ; and then, after a bit, when the 

laughing had died down, one of my com- 

[57] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

panions would break in and find out what 
we wanted to know. 

The information thus secured probably 
led us to a tiny cottage of mud-daubed 
wattles. Our hostess there might be a 
shapeless, wrinkled, clumsy old woman. 
Her kitchen equipment might be confined 
to an open fire and a spit, and a few battered 
pots. 

Her larder might be most meagrely cir- 
cumscribed as to variety, and generally was. 
But she could concoct such savoury dishes 
for us — such marvellous, golden-brown 
fried potatoes; such good soups; such 
savoury omelets; such toothsome fragrant 
stews ! Especially such stews ! 

For all we knew — or cared — the meat she 
put into her pot might have been horse 
meat and the garnishments such green 
things as she had plucked at the roadside; 
but the flavour of the delectable broth cured 
us of any inclinations to make investigation 
as to the former stations in life of its basic 
constituents. I am satisfied that, chosen at 
random, almost any peasant housewife of 

[58] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

France can take an old Palm Beach suit and 
a handful of potherbs and, mingling these 
together according to her own peculiar sys- 
tem, turn out a ragout fit for a king. In- 
deed, it would be far too good for some 
kings I know of. 

And if she had a worn-out bath sponge 
and the cork of a discarded vanilla-extract 
bottle she, calling upon her hens for a little 
help in the matter of eggs, could produce 
for dessert a delicious meringue, with float- 
ing-island effects in it, I'd stake my life on 
her ability to deliver. ' 

If, on such an occasion as the one I have 
sought to describe, we were perchance in 
the south of France or in the Cote-d'Or 
country, lying over toward the Swiss bor- 
der, we could count upon having a bait of 
delicious strawberries to wind up with. 
But if perchance we had fared into one of 
the northeastern provinces we were reason- 
ably certain the meal would be rounded out 
with helpings of a certain kind of cheese 
that is indigenous to those parts. It comes 
in a flat cake, which invariably is all caved 

[59] 






Eating in Two or Three Languages 



in and squashed out, as though the cheese- |y 
maker had sat upon it while bringing it 
into the market in his two-wheeled cart. |o 

Likewise, when its temperature goes up, 
it becomes more of a liquid than a solid; 
and it has an aroma by virtue of which it 
secures the attention and commands the re- 
spect of the most casual passer-by. It is 
more than just cheese. I should call it 
mother-of-cheese. It is to other and lesser 
cheeses as civet cats are to canary birds — 
if you get what I mean; and in its company 
the most boisterous Brie or the most vocifer- 
ous Camembert you ever saw becomes at 
once deaf and dumb. 

Its flavour is wonderful. Mainly it is 
found in ancient Normandy; and, among 
strangers, eating it — or, when it is in an 
especially fluid state, drinking it — comes 
under the head of outdoor sports. But the 
natives take it right into the same house with 
themselves. 

And, no matter where we were — in 
Picardy, in Brittany, in the Vosges or the 
Champagne, as the case might be — we had 

[60] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

wonderful crusty bread and delicious but- 
ter and a good light wine to go along with 
our meal. We would sit at a bare table in 
the smoky cluttered interior of the old 
kitchen, with the rafters just over our heads, 
and with the broken tiles — or sometimes the 
bare earthen floor — beneath our feet, and 
would eat our fill. 

More times than once or twice or thrice 
I have known the mistress of the house at 
settlement time to insist that we were over- 
paying her. From a civilian compatriot 
she would have exacted the last sou of her 
just due; but, because we were Americans 
and because our country had sent its sons 
overseas to help her people save France, 
she, a representative of the most canny and 
thrifty class in a country known for the 
thriftiness of all its classes, hesitated to ac- 
cept the full amount of the sum we offered 
her in payment. 

She believed us, of course, to be rich — in 
the eyes of the European peasant all Ameri- 
cans are rich — and she was poor and hard 
put to it to earn her living; but here was a 

[61] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

chance for her to show in her own way a 
sense of what she, as a Frenchwoman, felt 
for America. Somehow, the more you see 
of the French, the less you care for the Ger- 
mans. 

Moving on up a few miles nearer the 
trenches, we would run into our own peo- 
ple; and then we were sure of a greeting, 
and a chair apiece and a tin plate and a tin 
cup apiece at an American mess. I have 
had chuck with privates and I have had 
chow with noncoms ; I have had grub with 
companj^ commanders and I have dined 
with generals — and always the meal was 
flavoured with the good, strong man-talk of 
the real he-American. 

The food was of the best quality and 
there was plenty of it for all, and some to 
spare. One reason- -among others — ^why 
the Yank fought so well was because he 
was so well fed between fights. 

The very best meals I had while abroad 
were vouchsafed me during the three days 
I spent with a front-line regiment as a 
guest of the colonel of one of our negro out- 

[62] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

fits. To this colonel a French general, out 
of the goodness of his heart, had loaned his 
cook, a whiskered poilu, who, before he be- 
came a whiskered poilu, had been the chef 
in the castle of one of the richest men in 
Europe. 

This genius cooked the midday meals 
and the dinners; but, because no French- 
man can understand why any one should 
require for breakfast anything more solid 
than a dry roll and a dab of honey, the 
preparation of the morning meal was in- 
trusted to a Southern black boy, who, I 
may say, was a regular skillet hound. And 
this gifted youth wrestled with the matu- 
tinal ham and eggs and flipped the flap- 
jacks for the headquarters mess. 

On a full Southern breakfast and a won- 
derful French luncheon and dinner a grown 
man can get through the day very, very 
well indeed, as I bear witness. 

Howsomever, as spring wore .nto sum- 
mer and summer ran its course, I began to 
long with a constantly increasing longing 
for certain distinctive dishes to be found no- 

[63] 



Eating in Two or Three Languages 

where except in my native clime; brook 
trout, for example, and roasting ears, and 

Oh, lots of things! So I came home to 

get them. 

And, now that IVe had them, I often 
catch myself in the act of thoughtfully 
dwelling upon the fond remembrances of 
those spicy fragrant stews eaten in peasant 
kitchens, and those army doughnuts, and 
those slices of bacon toasted at daybreak on 
the lids of mess kits in British dugouts. 

I suppose they call contentment a jewel 
because it is so rare. 



[64] 






0^ .•-'. ^O 








0^ 

9^ 




ifc/T//x>^ -y^ ^ '^^^^^^vAn'*^'' ' Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process 

^^t^ O^ o ^J^j^^^S^ "■ Neutralizing Agent: Magnesium Oxide 

* ^^J^Sr^ * Treatment Date:- . 




1933 



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PRESERVATION TECHNOLOGIES. LP. 
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